'HOME-GROWN' METH LABS ON RISE IN RURAL LA.

SPRINGFIELD -- Just a few minutes before midnight, a Livingston Parish
Sheriff's Office cruiser and an unmarked sedan pulled off La. 22 and into
the driveway that led to a couple of rickety brown trailer homes. Curious
to know what had brought two detectives and a uniformed deputy to his home
on this dewy August evening, Dawes Ratcliff left his friends at the
metal-walled mechanic shop next door and wandered over to greet them,
according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report.

Detective Victor Marler -- a stocky narcotics investigator dressed in plain
clothes that night and fresh from a late-night interview with a
confidential informant -- recently told a federal judge he got right to the
point: He wanted to search the property for a methamphetamine laboratory.

"Oh, I don't have anything like that around here," a visibly surprised
Ratcliff told Marler, according to recent testimony in federal court. Then
he signed a consent form allowing the officers to search the property.

Inside an abandoned trailer encircled with weeds and rusted car parts -- in
a back bedroom closet with no doors -- Marler found exactly what he was
looking for, according to the DEA report.

A box of Morton's table salt. Coffee filters. A plastic bottle of Rooto
drain acid. And a green plastic Miracle Bubbles bottle emitting a gas.

All the makings for meth.

In backwoods trailers, urban homes and even the trunk of a Chevy,
discoveries like these are becoming increasingly common throughout Louisiana.

Dubbed by Southern law enforcement agents as the moonshine of a new
generation, this cheaply home-brewed superstimulant has become increasingly
popular in south Louisiana and the rest of the state.

Just two years ago, there were but 16 seizures of methamphetamine labs or
equipment -- a number that one year later leaped to 128. In the first three
months of this year, law enforcement authorities throughout the state had
already made 33 cases.

And those are just the ones among the more than 7,000 nationwide reported
to the National Center for Methamphetamine Clandestine Laboratory Information.

During the past few years, federal and local law enforcement agencies from
Lake Charles to Monroe say they have spent thousands of dollars in
methamphetamine interdiction training.

"Meth is now competing with marijuana as the drug of choice," said U.S.
Attorney David Dugas, who made a crackdown on meth one of his first
priorities after taking office in October 2001. "We want to try to get a
handle on it before it gets as bad as crack cocaine."

Cheaper than powder cocaine and more addictive than crack, meth can be
manufactured by anyone with little more than casserole dishes, coffee
filters, a box of nasal decongestants, drain cleaner, camping fuel, plastic
tubing, matches and $24 to purchase the sixth edition of "Secrets of
Methamphetamine Manufacture" by a countercultural chemist known only as
Uncle Fester.

To date, law enforcement authorities say, all of the labs discovered in
Louisiana have been mostly mom-and-pop operations that produce just enough
of the drug for the cooks themselves and a small circle of friends who
often pay for it by providing the ingredients to make the next batch.

Louisiana State Police analysts have begun tracking labs to determine
whether there are any signs of an organized distribution network. Federal
authorities also have discovered indications that meth's popularity may be
creating a market for Mexican imports.

"Right now, most of the meth we've found so far is home-grown in remote
labs like Livingston Parish," said Warren Rivera, the resident agent in
charge of the DEA in Baton Rouge. "It's a good place to hide the smoke and
the smell."

Indeed, if there is a south Louisiana hub for manufacturing meth,
Livingston Parish is it.

It's rural, which means plenty of open space to hide the odor meth labs
produce. And surrounding parishes have a ready supply of one of the drug's
key ingredients: anhydrous ammonia, a nitrogen fertilizer used by farmers.
Factories in Louisiana produce two-thirds of the toxic chemical, according
to a DEA fact sheet.

Livingston Parish was one of the first to discover meth labs in 2000. Last
year, it reported 19 seizures to federal authorities, although Sheriff
Willie Graves said his office actually made more than 80 such arrests last
year. Meth cases now constitute 60 percent of his office's narcotics
workload, he said.

Graves' office also has discovered lab tailgate cooking parties -- a secret
drug seminar in which a meth production expert is paid to teach a group of
wanna-be producers, said Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office Detective Stan
Carpenter.

"In one year, we went from nine cases to 80," said Graves, who notes most
of the activity is in the eastern part of the parish near Springfield and
Holden. "We realized then that we had a serious problem to address, so we
brought in some experts to help us."

Their most high-profile bust was this spring, when a federal grand jury
indicted Ratcliff. Those who live in this tiny town in the eastern part of
the parish have grown accustomed to seeing that name on red, white and blue
election billboards for his brother, incumbent Livingston Parish President
Dewey Ratcliff.

A superseding indictment issued by a grand jury last week charges Dawes
Ratcliff with distribution and conspiring to manufacture more than 50 grams
of the drug, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.

A DEA investigation found that Ratcliff allegedly purchased many of the key
ingredients right in town: A bottle of Rooto Professional Drain Opener from
the plumbing section of the Springfield Ace Hardware, just above the black
rubber plungers; and a 49-cent box of Morton's salt from the Piggly Wiggly,
across the red-and-cream-checkered tile floor from the Snickers and next to
the crab boil.

Defense Attorney Richard Upton last week argued in court that the search
was invalid, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, the number of meth cases continues to mount, according to court
documents. Just last week, there were two new meth cases in U.S. District
Court.

On Thursday, a grand jury charged 27-year-old Alonzo W. Rottman of
Ponchatoula, 34-year-old Fred Wayne Williams Jr. of Prairieville and
31-year-old Earl T. Rottman II of Gonzales with conspiracy and possession
with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine.

A fourth suspect, 38-year-old Margaret A. Williams of Prairieville, was
charged with possession.

The four were nabbed in February when a suspicious ammunition box was
discovered during the DEA Task Force's routine search of a
mail-distribution center. Authorities opened the box and discovered more
than 9 ounces of meth, smoking devices, stun guns and drug paraphernalia,
Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley said.

And on Friday, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives and Ascension Parish Sheriff's deputies searching for illegal
weapons in a Gonzales home discovered a methamphetamine laboratory in a
backyard shed.

After a brief scuffle, according to a criminal complaint by ATF Special
Agent Augustine Lugo Jr., they arrested Jeffery P. Olinde, an $18-an-hour
refrigerator repairman with two children ages 4 and 7 -- and a felony record.

Appearing in court late Friday, a tearful Olinde waived his right to an
attorney for his detention hearing and begged in vain for his release.

"If you lock me up, you're going to take the roof off my babies' heads," he
told U.S. Magistrate Christine Noland. "All I want to do is take care of my
babies and my wife. They have $20 between them."

In Louisiana, the effects of meth usage are starting to be felt in more
than just squad cars and prisons. In five years, the number of meth users
admitted to public treatment centers more than doubled to nearly 700,
according to the Office of Addictive Disorders.

Each lab bust requires a special cleanup crew skilled in handling hazardous
materials, according to the DEA. The average cost to dismantle a meth lab,
according to the DEA, is $3,500.

The Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office recently spent $55,000 in federal
grant money on a mobile unit to process meth lab evidence. It's also
received another $10,000 grant to help cover overtime costs associated with
meth lab crimes. Labs often take as long as 24 hours to process and clean up.

Defense attorney Upton says those financial incentives have made law
enforcement overzealous in its approach to meth cases.

He questions whether the resources spent -- particularly at the federal
level -- have made a significant impact, particularly when meth labs are
not part of a larger drug network.

"There's a lot of federal funding to be had, but I think the cowboy,
Miami-Vice lifestyle is a lot of what motivates this," Upton said. "I'm
certainly not in favor of drug use, but I think there's a tendency for the
Constitution to be ignored in favor of making a case -- and that's just as
dangerous to me as the drugs."

But Rivera says the money is well spent. "I definitely think we've made an
impact; word has gotten out that we're cracking down," the DEA resident
agent in charge said. "It makes people leery, and they resort to different
drugs. But I think meth is going to remain a priority for a long time."